Хилари Боннер - A Deep Deceit

At one point she started to say speak, then seemed to change her mind. ‘There was talk of something that happened in America, too, but, oh, it’s sure to be only rumour...’

‘What, Mariette? DS Perry mentioned something about America, just before I collapsed.’

Mariette grasped the opportunity with which I had presented her. ‘Then it’s DS Perry you should be talking to, not me. I should know better than even to start repeating the gossip of St Ives. It’s invariably a load of old nonsense.’

I could tell she didn’t really believe that, but she wasn’t saying any more. She could be very stubborn when she wanted, could Mariette. She left pretty quickly then, and I asked a passing nurse for a telephone.

After waiting fruitlessly for at least half an hour I asked another nurse. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up there was still no sign of a telephone.

Ultimately it was nearly the end of the day before one of those cumbersome trolleys was brought to me. Strange, with all the modern technology available, that nothing has changed in most NHS hospitals in this respect for several decades.

I called Directory Enquiries to get the number of the police station, dialled it and asked for DS Perry. She wasn’t there.

‘She’s away,’ I was told. I was pretty sure it was the same desk clerk I had spoken to when I went there.

I gave my name, mentioned Carl’s, said it was urgent and asked if there was anywhere else I could speak to her.

‘Not sure about that,’ said the clerk. He seemed about as interested and dynamic as he had the first time I had encountered him.

‘I don’t even know where Carl is,’ I muttered vaguely.

‘He’s been remanded in custody, abduction is a serious offence, Mrs Peters,’ said the clerk and that was about as informative as he was going to be. ‘I can get PC Partridge to call you, if you like. He’s about the only one around today.’

I groaned inwardly. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in PC Partridge. I also left a message for DS Perry and ultimately the promise of a call-back from one or other of them was what I had to settle for. I explained that it might be difficult for anyone to get through to me in hospital and asked that they keep insisting. The clerk muttered something inaudible.

I waited all that late afternoon and evening, and the next morning, before impatience got the better of me and I called again. I still reached a brick wall. This time I talked to an uninterested female voice.

‘DS Perry is still away, I’m afraid.’

I asked for PC Partridge again.

‘He’s in court today.’

‘Can you get a message to him? I called yesterday but he hasn’t got back to me...’

‘Did you leave a message for him then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, he’s sure to have got it.’

‘But I haven’t heard from him.’

‘He’ll call when he can, I’m sure. You’re in hospital you say? Not always easy to get through, is it?’

‘You can say that again,’ I said with feeling. ‘Look, I want to talk to someone about my husband Carl Peters. Can you help.’

‘I’m afraid not. You could try Penzance. I believe it’s being dealt with from there now.’

‘But I was told PC Partridge could help me.’

‘I’m sure he probably can. He did work on the case with DS Perry.’

I stifled an impatient sigh. ‘Please give him another message. I really do need to speak to him urgently.’

I got nowhere. But I still felt too weak to put up much of a fight. All I could do was lie back in my hospital bed and carry on waiting for Rob Partridge to call.

That afternoon there was a bit of a diversion. Will Jones paid me a visit, bringing with him a beautiful book about Patrick Heron, which I received gratefully. I was still in a bit of a daze but, in spite of my befuddled and anxious state, it was good to have company, to chat for a bit.

At first we made a rather strained kind of small talk, but it was better than nothing. As with Mariette’s visit, it was good just to think that someone cared enough to come calling.

At one point, after quite a long silence, Will enquired if I had any money on me. Typically, I hadn’t even thought about it. And the answer was that I didn’t have a penny. Will took his wallet from his pocket and handed me two twenty-pound notes. ‘I owe you more, I’ve sold some of Carl’s paintings,’ he said. ‘I’ll work out how much by the time you get out of here...’

I thanked him. The money should have gone to Carl, I supposed. There was another vaguely uncomfortable silence. Then Will began to ask me a lot of questions, most of which I either could not or did not wish to answer.

‘So he just sort of went off the rails, really?’ he muttered.

I nodded.

‘What pushed him, do you know?’

I sighed. Not sure whether I wanted to talk like this or not. ‘Fear, more than anything,’ I said. ‘Fear of losing me. Fear of what might happen to us.’

‘And you thought all this time that you’d killed your husband?’

‘Absolutely,’ I confirmed.

‘And you both thought that was what the letters and the rest of it referred to?’

‘Oh, the letters, yes, of course...’

I hadn’t thought about any of that for a while. I had had other things on my mind, like being imprisoned against my will by the man I loved, and fighting off critical bouts of pneumonia and pleurisy. ‘Well, I thought that, but not Carl, of course,’ I went on. ‘Carl sent the letters, I’m sure of that now.’

Will looked startled. ‘Did he admit it?’

‘I think so,’ I wasn’t quite sure, come to think of it. ‘What does it matter anyway, after all that has happened?’

‘No, I suppose not. So Carl really has turned into a villain, hasn’t he?’

He was right enough, of course, but I still didn’t like to hear it.

‘Fancy letting you think you’d killed someone all these years...’

‘We don’t know that for sure,’ I managed to protest, clutching at straws, maybe.

Will gave me that look of his, which he switched on when he was demonstrating just how much cleverer he was than you. Fond as I was of him, it never failed to irritate me. ‘Well, of course, you must believe what you want to believe, Suzanne,’ he began. Then he was interrupted by a large nurse bearing a thermometer, which she placed uncompromisingly in my mouth. Which might have been all for the best.

The thermometer was still there when Will left.

‘I’ll pop round when you’re home,’ he had said before he departed.

I tried to mutter something and reached for the thermometer. The large nurse tapped my hand reprovingly. And in my condition I didn’t have the strength to argue, even had I not had a thermometer wedged between my lips.

I had to see him. And I had to know the worst.

You could not share all that I had shared with Carl and not want to see a man who you thought you had known so well, yet whom perhaps you hadn’t known at all.

I discharged myself from hospital early the next morning. Nobody had phoned me back from the police, and I couldn’t wait any longer. I somehow felt sure that if I could just get myself to St Ives police station I could sort everything out. I walked to Penzance railway station and caught the next train back to the little seaside town where Carl and I had been so happy for so long. At St Ives I made my way along the beach to the harbour, breathing in the sea air, taking strength from its fresh saltiness, before turning into the town and up through the network of steep streets to the hidden-away police station. I arrived there just after 9 a.m., out of breath and wondering if I had done a bit too much walking, but determined to get some answers. I was hoping, of course, that DS Perry would be back from wherever she had been over the two previous days. At least she seemed to have some idea what was going on. But even to be able to see Rob Partridge would be a result. I craved some kind of familiarity.